Northern Michigan's M-TEC healthy despite deficit

June 30, 2004|By Mary Jergenson, Staff Writer

GAYLORD - A recent check-up finds the financial health of Kirtland Community College's (KCC) Michigan Technical Education Center (M-TEC) at Gaylord well, in spite of a fiscal year-end deficit of $130,000. Funding transferred from KCC helped M-TEC to balance its $1.35 million budget as it closed out the fiscal year June 30.

"We have reached our two-year anniversary and are now able to more accurately budget. The one-time $200,000 expense to set up the H-VAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) lab is the reason for the operating deficit for 2003-'04. We expect the 2004-'05 budget to be $48,000 in the red, and by 2005-'06 be right on target," confirmed Doty Latuszek, acting M-TEC provost.

"We had a group of men from Mio who were recently laid off. They enrolled in the H-VAC program. These were men who had families to support, and desired to complete their course work as quickly as possible," explained Latuszek. "We realized they were working faster than we expected, so to accommodate them we had to bump up the construction of the H-VAC lab one full year ahead of schedule.

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"In this case, Kirtland's capital expenditure was justified to allow the students to continue their education without interruption."

"The fall 1999 approval of the .65-millage for the (M-TEC) Otsego County residents allows us to reap the benefits of almost a full community college, for about one-third the cost," continued Latuszek. Taxpayers in Crawford, Oscoda, Ogemaw and Roscommon counties pay taxes on 2.17 mills for Kirtland's main campus.

"In order to have a comprehensive set of offerings we need to look to subsidize in some areas," commented Kirtland Community College President Charles Rorie explained. "With each year the subsidy is less and in two years we project to be entirely self-supporting (at M-TEC)."

Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) M-TEC in Traverse City is operating at a deficit of more than $1million. NMC's M-TEC opened in January 2001 with grant money from the state. "The grant money was enough to pay for the building. We have had to find additional funding to pay for the equipment of some of our high-dollar programs," stated Kathleen Guy, executive director of College Relations at NMC. "The information technology (computers), construction trades, manufacturing technology and aviation are some of the cost-intensive programs we are committed to offering our community."

NMC M-TEC receives from the state, tuition and fees, and local property taxes. The school has not levied millage to help support the center. Guy explained, "Some of our programs are self-supporting, and some may never be. We use money generated from some programs to assist with financing others. We always end each year with a balanced budget."